Blender 2.63 released

I don't know how many people here care, but I'm pretty sure we have a few 3D modelers that shunned Blender because of it's horribly retarded mesh system. That's been completely fixed with the inclusion of bmesh, a totally new mesh system that now brings Blender's mesh system up to date with some more popular 3D packages. that cost money

I don't really care about the Bmesh to Upgrade Blender, but it's good for them that they're catching up with those expensive modeling softwares. All they need now is the Smoothing Groups for the Mesh so that I don't have to separate Polys to get the effects I wanted.

Ooooh that stuff looks nice =O *hasn't used Blender in ages, doesn't know how much of that is really new*

I was using Wings3D since supposedly it's more lightweight (...and OK, it feels more lightweight). It lacks a lot of features Blender has, but it also has many useful built-in shapes Blender doesn't seem to have... I should take a look again to see if they're now in Blender or not.

I don't really care about the Bmesh to Upgrade Blender, but it's good for them that they're catching up with those expensive modeling softwares. All they need now is the Smoothing Groups for the Mesh so that I don't have to separate Polys to get the effects I wanted.

Oh yes. I never realized how much I depended on smoothing groups in Max until I started using Blender a while ago. Honestly, I didn't even know that was on the table for the Blender Foundation. That's good to know!

Yes they did, and it is a lot more organized. Keyboard shortcuts are still the driving method of interaction with Blender, though. Another one of it's "features" that turns people off of it. Blender was all I had access to for a long time, so I got used to it

Keyboard shortcuts are still the driving method of interaction with Blender, though. Another one of it's "features" that turns people off of it.

Those users better hope they don't have to use CAD programs then - those are literally driven by one or two letter commands (I know, AutoCAD has longer commands, but most of them also have abbreviations and nobody uses the full names), and parameters are almost always entered exclusively through keyboard too (save for selecting objects, which is done with the cursor). Blender seems to be designed to be used the same way as CAD programs, actually.

I hate Blender's UI. Maya's and Max's UI is perfect for me. That's pretty much why I shun it.

That's a shame. After messing with Lightwave, 3D Studio Max, Maya and Cinema 4D several times, I have to say I find Blender's interface miles and miles better than the aforementioned programs. Its freedom of customizing the entire workspace has always helped me greatly. For instance; allowing me to create a workspace for compositing, animating (including graphing) and modeling, then switching between them instantly. It's really great to have a workspace without floating windows or screens blocking parts (or entire) of your viewports.

And the whole interface refresh that came with 2.6 gives users with multiple monitors a very pleasant experience.

I also don't quite understand how Blender being so 'shortcut driven' can be considered a bad thing. If anything, it makes 3D modeling and animating a way more streamlined process. All the key shortcuts and combos can be easily found in the menus.

I also don't quite understand how Blender being so 'shortcut driven' can be considered a bad thing. If anything, it makes 3D modeling and animating a way more streamlined process. All the key shortcuts and combos can be easily found in the menus.

It gives Blender a steep learning curve, especially for people trying to transition from more "standard" uis. It took me FOREVER to get used to right-clicking to select things.

I also don't quite understand how Blender being so 'shortcut driven' can be considered a bad thing. If anything, it makes 3D modeling and animating a way more streamlined process. All the key shortcuts and combos can be easily found in the menus.

It gives Blender a steep learning curve, especially for people trying to transition from more "standard" uis. It took me FOREVER to get used to right-clicking to select things.

You can switch the right-click to left click, along with most things.

Having become experienced with Max, Maya, and Blender, I loved Blender far more. Now I get nausea everytime I look at Max or Maya. Its like switching from ordinary consumer milk to organic milk. Once you go back, it tastes like shit and you realize which one is superior. Blender's workflow is far more efficient and as far as I'm concerned that's not an opinion. Once you learn it and apply it, the results are very real, very clear, and without a doubt a scientific article could explain exactly why Blender is better.
It'll be a great day when studios stop forking out thousands upon thousands of dollars just to appease the institute monkeys who were trained with Max and Maya, the "industry standard". It was the only way to go in the 90s, but that is now a deprecated standard which only exists so Autodesk stays rich. We should all learn Blender and other certain open source software, save a ton of money and put the greedy dicks at Autodesk out of business. Then Blender will only get better after that.

I tried to get used to the 2.62 interface, but after learning and getting comfortable with 2.49, I just couldn't. They fucked everything up, and I initially hated Blender when I first tried it, but eventually I managed to get it to do what I wanted it to, so I'm not going to go through that again just so I can have it all taken away from me when they drop 2.7.

I tried to get used to the 2.62 interface, but after learning and getting comfortable with 2.49, I just couldn't. They fucked everything up, and I initially hated Blender when I first tried it, but eventually I managed to get it to do what I wanted it to, so I'm not going to go through that again just so I can have it all taken away from me when they drop 2.7.

I felt the same way when Blender first jumped from 2.49 to 2.5. I scorned it for its new ui and kept to my guns... 2.49... like a bitter old person. However I started reading about some of the new features and knew that I would need them to progress. So I started working with it and my perspective on it as a whole changed entirely like green eggs and ham. Not only were the new features WAY worth it, but the ui was actually much better than it used to be. Things are organized more effectively and more coherent without sacrificing any of the speed or efficiency that Blender is good at. I highly recommend taking the plunge. To my knowledge they will not be doing another ui facelift for 2.7, there is no point. They only did so because of all the issues they recognized in 2.4x and under. They were right and solved it well. There have been proposals for ui changes for the next version, but not nearly as drastic.